By Adelaide Madary
California voters on Tuesday approved Proposition 3, removing language from the state’s constitution that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. Same-sex marriage has been legal in California since 2013.
Over the past two decades, there’s been a shift in how religious communities approach this issue.
In 2008, voters passed Proposition 8, which restored language to the California constitution that would only recognize marriage between a man and a woman. Leading up to that vote, several major religious groups — including the California Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America — mobilized around the pro-8 campaign and helped raise over $38 million.
In a sharp contrast, opposition to this year’s Proposition 3, which included The California Family Council and the Rev. Tanner DiBella, chairman of the American Council, did not register any major donors. The measure’s supporters raised $3.6 million, led by Equality California, an LGBTQ+ civil rights organization.
Another sign of change: The California Conference of Catholic Bishops endorsed Proposition 8 but did not take an official stance on Proposition 3, which was backed by 61% of voters on Tuesday.
Some churches have become more open to same-sex marriage. Others have simply lost their momentum in fighting the tide of public opinion.
Father Bartholomew Hutcherson, pastor of the Catholic community at Stanford University, said he opposed Prop 3 due to his religious beliefs. “Catholics view marriage as a gift given by God for the furtherance of the human race and the kingdom of God, limited to a man and a woman,” he said.
At the same time, he doesn’t want to make too big a deal about it. There has always been a distinction between what the church says is a marriage and what the government says, according to Hutcherson. “We live in a free society. There are people who don’t believe what we believe, and so there needs to be some accommodation of the state, and it doesn’t take anything away from what I believe,” he said. “Prop 3 is just trying to recognize in the constitution what the law already is. In that sense, I don’t really have a dog in this fight.”
The legalization of same-sex civil marriages has brought more attention to the issue among Catholics. In recent years, Pope Francis pushed Catholics to address homosexuality with more openness while not expressing that the church would change its position on same-sex marriage.
Not all Christians see eye to eye on the matter. The Rev. Colleen Hallagan Preuninger, who was ordained in the United Methodist Church, does not think that same-sex marriage is incompatible with the theology of her faith tradition. Preuninger serves as the Associate Dean of the Stanford Office for Religious and Spiritual Life and has engaged in advocacy to change conservative language around marriage and sexuality from the Book of Discipline — a body of text that details the rules of the United Methodist denomination.
In response to the culture wars of the 1970s, the United Methodist Church had explicitly defined marriage as only between a man and a woman and put in a provision that homosexuality was incompatible with Christian teaching. After years of advocacy, this language officially changed in May.
Preuninger said that the denomination’s governmental structure mirrors that of the U.S. government. “Methodists are uniquely susceptible to tacking with the American culture wars and political tides because of the ways in which we’re inextricably bound with the history of the U.S.,” she said.
Now, United Methodist Church communities can choose whether they will have queer weddings officiated in their building. Clergy can choose who they do or do not marry; there’s no prohibition but also no compulsion.
“The reason it passed now is because the most conservative edge of our denomination got fed up over Covid, formed their own church [The Global Methodist Church] and left,” Preuninger said.
The question of homosexuality and queer marriage has been a major issue within the denomination since around 2012. “It is fair to say, in my opinion, that this change happened because of the ways in which general US-American opinion and acceptance has shifted since marriage equality,” Preuninger said.
Preuninger favors Proposition 3, “Regardless of your theological tradition, forcing people to believe the way you believe in ways that hurt people … I don’t think is in line with the teachings and witnesses of Jesus,” she said.
Michael Penn, professor of Religious Studies at Stanford, has observed that people are sorting into churches that reflect their ethical viewpoints on sexuality. But an interesting puzzle has emerged: While the public’s approval of same-sex marriage has grown, membership among mainline Protestant denominations with more progressive views on the matter has declined. Evangelical and politically conservative churches have been growing in comparison.
Glen Davis, a pastor belonging to the Evangelical-Pentecostal denomination Assemblies of God, noted that “every denomination that has embraced same-sex marriage has seen their attendance plummet. They probably won’t be here in two generations unless something radical shifts.”
Penn cautioned against drawing a line of causality between issues of same-sex marriage and church attendance, since many mainline Protestant churches with dwindling attendance still do not permit gay clergy members. There may be other reasons people find conservative churches more appealing, he said.
Davis, who ministers to a fellowship of Christian students at Stanford, said he believes that marriage “is a union between a man and a woman to death do them part, and it’s oriented towards the procreation of children and the furtherance of God’s will on Earth.”
“People on the progressive side often just assume that I agree with them,” he said. “Contrary to what some people in society think, we almost never talk about this.” Davis spends a lot more time talking about honesty, generosity and forgiveness — and conversations around same-sex marriage have really calmed down from his perspective. Other topics, such as transgenderism, come up more, he said.
